South Korean online game giant NCSoft Corp. made a record-breaking milestone of achieving 100 billion won ($87.2 million) revenue in its first 12 days of launch of Lineage M, the mobile version of Korea’s all-time favorite multiplayer role-playing label.

According to NCSoft on Monday, it raised an average of 9 billion won in daily sales with Lineage M in the first 11 days after release on June 21, adding up to 99 billion won in accumulated sales. It estimated sales would have hit over the 100 billion won mark on the 12th day and onwards.

The last game that created so big a splash was Netmarble Games Corp.’s Lineage2 Revolution whose sales reached the same milestone in 14 days after launch in December. Netmarble was able to release similar-themed multiplayer online game under partnership with Lineage original publisher NCSoft.

NCSoft raked in 10.7 billion won in sales on the first day of the game launch last month before hitting 13 billion won - the highest daily sales to be ever posted by a local mobile game - on July 1.

The hit of Lineage M had been widely anticipated from the beginning when NCSoft received pre-orders from 5.5 million gamers. The game has surpassed the 7 million user mark as of July 2.

An unnamed official from NCSoft said that Lineage M attracted the highest number of daily users of 2.1 million on the day of release and ever since, an average of 1.5 million gamers have been enjoying the visual mobile game every day.

Analysts note that the popularity of Lineage M - which is a sequel of Lineage, a medieval fantasy and online role-playing game launched in 1998 - is based on the fandom of gamers in their 30s and 40s that enjoyed the prequel when they were young.

According to a survey conducted by app analytics firm WiseApp Inc. on the day of Lineage M release last month, 51 percent of Lineage M users were in their 30s while 22 percent in their 20s, 19 percent 40s, 7 percent teens, and 2 percent 50s.

By Seo Dong-cheol

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]